Auburn, AL (EETV)- Auburn University Provost Bill Hardgrave, former president Dr. Steven Leath and two other administrators being sued by two Economics professors and former administration for their management of the Economics department. This was first reported by the Opelika-Auburn News.
The filings in the lawsuit say that there was ongoing tension between members of the Economics department and the school's administration over how much "autonomy" the Economics department should have. There was also concern over a Political Science degree program.
Economics professors Alan Seals and Mike Stern have been critics of Hardgrave's decisions to have more in-person classes during the spring semester. They believed that the classrooms were not adequate for keeping proper social distancing protocol and limiting the risk of COVID-19 exposure. This led to a vote of no-confidence against Hardgrave in mid-January which ended up not going any further.
Seals is suing over a decision to remove him from being the Graduate Program Officer for the Economics Department. His lawsuit is directed at Hardgrave, Dr. Leath, retired provost Timothy Boosinger, Dean of Liberal Arts Joseph Aistrup, and economics professor Hyeongwoo Kim. The university will not be a defendant in this case.
Stern is suing Boosinger, Aistrup, Leath, and Hardgrave on his own behalf. For more on this story you can check out the original article here.
